Time
by lurv2boogie
Summary: Hermione likes to remind herself that not everything is within her control. It helps her gain a little perspective. She just doesn't realise how close to the bone this sentiment is going to become for her.


In a world of inconsistencies, all there's left to rely on, for its consistency, is time.

It moves with the straightforward simplicity of a wheel in motion – not necessarily purposefully, but always reliably. The darkness of night is always followed by the painful brightness of the day. If you wait for an hour, there's always the satisfying knowledge that the clock's going to read an hour later than it did before you started. Reliability is, unwaveringly, the very definition of time.

How is it, then, that --

---

He fell.

He lay on the ground, unmoving. Nothing was moving.

Time stopped.

---

He was a good man, a brave man, despite whatever it was he may have seemed.

---

**Earlier**

**---**

Until you're actually standing on it, you have no idea how fragile the ledge of life actually is. How easily it could crumble, could break – how easy it would be to just abandon hope and jump free of the ledge, and suddenly find yourself tumbling. Of course, some people find themselves _pushed_ off the metaphor entirely- some violently shoved, and some given a little nudge - but regardless of how it happens, almost everyone finds themselves tumbling off their ledge of life sooner or later.

So here I am, about to fall of my personal ledge, unsure of whether I'm being pushed or whether I've made the decision to jump; I'm either about to plummet to doom or to salvation, whether it be of my own doing or someone else's, and I hear a man's voice – a recognisable voice – from somewhere behind me.

"Granger. You're standing on a window sill."

Yes. My ledge has, somehow, become distastefully literal. Draco Malfoy tuts loudly as I respond with some disdain.

"I was actually aware, but thanks for pointing it out. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't."

"Don't you think you should get inside, maybe?"

Malfoy's voice, the unexpected voice of reason, echoes through the otherwise empty Astronomy Tower I've left behind me. The only thing is, I'm fed up with reason. And I tell him so.

"Granger. This isn't funny. Climb back inside."

"Don't want to." Well, yes, that was mature.

"Come on, Granger. Get inside."

I pause, and then turn to face him as much as I can without physically swivelling my body 180 degrees, huffing angrily. "Don't use that tone with me."

"What are you, my mother now? You're being stupid and I am significantly _less_ stupid; ergo, what I say goes. Get inside."

"I needed some fresh air."

"So open a bloody window! Don't climb out onto one!"

Again, I pause. Now that I'm thinking this through, with the Forbidden Forest sprawled out in front of me, the skyline clearly visible and a bird nest next to my right ear, it suddenly seems that simply opening a window would, indeed, suffice. I shrug, and move to climb back inside, but it suddenly occurs to me as I swing a leg over towards Malfoy that merely opening a window would totally destroy the point, as would simply walking outside on solid (and expansive) ground.

Grunting, I tense my leg mid-swing and it slaps the cold stone of the tower before I haul it back outside. I look back; Malfoy's eyes are practically exploding out of his head.

"Granger!" He says in a furious whisper, "What the _hell_ are you doing?"

"Life's fragile, Malfoy," I start, wondering if he has the emotional capacity and range to understand what I mean. A bird swoops past me, startling me and I lose my balance for a moment. "See what I mean? Anything could happen. At any time."

"Well, yeah," he replies, obviously losing patience, "but we generally don't go tempting fate by doing stupid things like hanging off the edge of buildings! God, I always suspected you lot were looking to off yourselves, you always look so bloody miserable…"

"It's about peaceful recognition of things that are beyond human control, Malfoy, not me trying to 'off myself'."

"How is standing on a window-sill _not_ within your control?"

"I choose to stand on the window-sill, of course I can control that. What happens to me when I'm _on_ the window… that's beyond my control. I just…" I sigh. "Sometimes it's easy to lose perspective. With the whole 'war' thing. I like to be reminded that there are things bigger than everything that's going on… with everything."

He looks taken aback – I suppose he didn't expect me to be quite so honest. And then he does something that shocks me so much I double-take: he holds out a hand, offering me some help getting back inside to safety (and, I suppose, sanity).

"Don't kill yourself, Granger. Among other things, I'm not particularly looking to be accused of pushing you off a ledge."

I hesitate, but whatever sense I had comes back to me in a flood of understanding, and I begin to move my right leg back inside the window. My foot catches the safety of the floor inside the Astronomy Tower and Malfoy grabs my hand for a second – but no more, of course – to pull the rest of my body through. He falls backward with the force, and when he looks up at me again, he frowns.

"Granger, I don't know what you're playing at, but get inside this bloody tower _right now_."

"I can't, Malfoy."

"Oh, of course, I forgot, your little psychological experiment—"

"No, you twit, I'm stuck," I say, matter-of-factly. He stares at me for a moment before bursting into laughter. "Something funny, Malfoy?"

As soon as I ask, he checks himself and stops laughing.

"No. Of course not. Not even the fact that you're choosing to hang yourself out of a window and now _you're stuck_."

My eyes narrow, almost painfully.

"Are you going to give me a hand or just stand there watching me and making horribly witty jokes."

"Sarcasm will get you nowhere."

"Would you please just help me?"

He huffs and puffs indignantly for a moment before jerking his head in what I can only imagine is a nod. Holding out his hand, he gestures for me to grab it, and I hold out my right hand, mildly grateful. He stares at me for a moment.

"What are you waiting for, some kind of preternaturally-arranged _sign_? Climb inside!"

I gather my wits (and, though I would never admit it, my courage) and start to swing my left leg around. It won't. Dismally, I come to the realisation that I'm going to have to bring my right leg back outside to get free. I tell Malfoy as much. He looks like he's having an internal meltdown.

"Granger! What the _hell_ are you doing?"

"I have to get my whole body back outside if I'm going to get unstuck."

At this, he laughs again, albeit this time with less merriment in his voice. I start manoeuvring my leg back outside the window. After thirty seconds, I've successfully freed myself from the jagged bit of stone block that my robes had snagged on.

"Alright, I'm coming in."

Malfoy doesn't say anything, just holds out his left hand expectantly. I move to grab it, and hold on before suddenly my stomach lurches in a most sickening fashion and I realise with sheer terror that the sill I've been standing on has given way.

Everything seems to be in slow motion. I'm still falling, and yet somehow still miraculously aware of Malfoy's hand grasping mine. It takes me what feels like a minute to work out how that could be if I'm still falling, before I realise with some shock that not only is he still holding onto my hand but he's somehow falling too.

I fling my hands out desperately, wildly, seeking anything on the wall that I can grab onto – and my hand comes into contact with the solid head of a stone gargoyle. I brace my shoulders, knowing that the sudden lurch will be painful – and it is – but at least now we're hanging off a wall, compared to falling next to one.

Malfoy drops down beneath me, still gripping my hand tightly.

"Shit," I breathe, "shit, shit."

Malfoy doesn't look up at me. I can't tell if he's conscious.

"Malfoy? Are you okay?"

There's no response for a few seconds, until:

"I'm hanging off the side of a very tall tower, secured only by a girl whose upper arm strength is questionable. What do you think?"

"Right. Right," I look up, then down, trying to judge how far we've fallen. "Shit. Can you reach your wand?"

"No. You?"

"Both hands are kind of occupied at the moment."

"Right."

We fall silent for a few moments, and I look up at my left hand. It's slipping.

"Malfoy. We may have a slight problem here."

"What's that?"

I go to answer him, but gravity decides to field that question.

We fall again.

This time it goes much faster, and it's over in a split second. There's a horrible impact to my joints but miraculously I'm still alive, still hanging off the wall, still attached to Draco Malfoy's left hand.

He's attached to another stone gargoyle, about seven feet above me. I can see his knuckles going white from the pressure.

"Alright, alright, Granger, we need a plan."

I look down. It's still at least fifty feet to the ground.

"Do we? Do we really?"

He grips my hand a little tighter. "Do you want to be a smart arse or do you want to get out of this alive?"

"What did you have in mind?"

He pauses, and rearranges his grip on the gargoyle. "There's a window here, next to my right hand. Let go of my left hand and hold on to my legs."

I look down again and immediately I'm noticing the measurable gap between his hand and his legs.

"I can't. I'm going to fall."

"Granger, do it. I need my left hand."

"But—"

"JUST DO IT!"

When he screams, I can hear the fear in his heart and the ache in his joints. Something inside me breaks.

"Alright. I'm doing it."

I look at his ankles, and hoist myself up so that my left shoulder is now at the same level as his feet. Swinging my left arm around, I grab him around the ankles and hold them tightly to my body as I move my right hand away from his and latch on to his calves, shaking furiously.

"Okay," he says, and swings his left arm up to secure his grip on the gargoyle. "Now climb up."

"What?"

"Climb up my body and you'll be able to reach the window. Once you get there, pull yourself in and then pull me in."

I contemplate this for a second.

"I want to live," I say, as though it needed any sort of clarification, and begin to shimmy up his legs. It takes a few minutes of struggling but I've cleared enough distance up his body to be able to bring my legs around his to help climb up. I keep struggling up his body, blushing when my face brushes past his bottom, and trying desperately hard to not press too hard at the front of his body when I'm about level with his hips. I successfully manoeuvre past this danger zone and up his back, struggling for several more minutes until my legs are around his chest in a piggy-back position and I'm stable enough to reach for the nearby windowsill.

Gripping the windowsill, I haul myself up and, losing balance, put a foot on the head of the gargoyle Malfoy's clutching on to despairingly.

Gargoyles, for future reference, can't take that much direct pressure.

As it happens.

They break.

And once again, Malfoy is falling, only this time there's no gargoyles or windowsills that can save him and I stare at him as he falls, totally lost, utter terror and despair written across his face, waiting for that terrible impact with the expansive, incredibly solid, ground.

Inevitable.

---

**Same Time, Different Place**

---

Harry Potter danced between the lights, ducking and diving, moving with the skill and grace of a man who knows what he's doing.

It was all bluffed, of course.

He stunned the last Death Eater that had been trying to attack him, and this bought him enough time to turn and search for Remus Lupin and Ron Weasley. Ron was in the corner, standing his ground against two Death Eater's who clearly wanted his blood. Harry could see Remus through the next door, staving off four Death Eaters by himself. Harry turned back to Ron and stunned a large man who was in the middle of performing what would have undoubtedly been a nasty curse. Ron took out the second Death Eater with '_Petrificus Totalus'_ and the two nodded stoically at each other before rushing to help Remus.

Ron immediately took to duelling with a blonde, muscly man who looked as though he could easily rip Ron's arms out of their sockets and bludgeon him to death that way.

Harry caught the attention of a wiry looking woman, who took him slightly off-guard and stung him with a charm that left what looked like a cigarette burn in his upper arm. Getting his focus back, Harry tried for a disarming spell, but she blocked it skilfully and the duel continued with ferocity.

Harry was vaguely aware of someone screaming. Someone familiar.

His senses caught up with him for a moment, and a single, horrible thought hit him.

_It was Ron._

He shot another disarming spell at the female Death Eater, and this time he did not miss, sending her flying across the room. He spun on his heels and saw Ron on the ground, screaming.

Under torture.

The thought incensed Harry beyond what he thought he was capable of. He stunned the Death Eater with such power that it, too, sent him flying – straight into the brick wall about half a metre from where he had been standing.

Harry looked at Ron and almost smiled at him, helping him up among the rubble and the din and the chaos of the fight.

Ron opened his mouth to say something, his lips curving upwards slightly, but as fate would have it, he didn't get to say anything.

---

A flash of green light grazed his arm as it sped past him.

He was falling.

---

**Same Time, Different Place**

---

I watch him fall, helpless and completely stripped of all the arrogance and pride that had overshadowed anything else in all the time that I had known him.

And I realise that he is helpless.

But I am not.

I reach for my wand, awkwardly jutting out of my now open pocket.

---

**Same Time, Different Place**

**---**

He fell.

He lay on the ground, unmoving. Nothing was moving.

Time stopped.

Ron fell.

---

**Same Time, Different Place**

**---**

I can cushion his fall. So I do.

He's looking up at me, relieved to be alive. And definitely pissed off.

---

**Same Time, Different Place**

---

Harry's eyes widened as he watched Ron collapse, unmoving, unbreathing.

He turned on the spot and saw the wiry woman standing just behind him, triumphant, and he realised his mistake.

_He had forgotten to take her wand. _

The witch would not forget what _she _had done in a hurry, though.

Harry made sure of that.

---

**Later**

**---**

"Hermione."

"Harry! You're back." A confused pause. "Where's Ron?"

---

As fate would have it, it's not always the heroes that survive.

---


End file.
